Severed Heads
by TacticianZephine
Summary: Shattered Glass: A Decepticon footsoldier infiltrates the Autobot Base, and picks the wrong room to hide in. Rated T for general creepiness. OC-centric. You have been warned.


**Oops, I did a Shattered Glass. I've been working with T'Reilani on a thing, so Shattered Glass Ember needed to be introduced. I regret nothing.**

* * *

The Eradicon peered around the corner, then tapped the "open" key on the door, slipping into the room and letting it shut behind him as he heard the footsteps of the scrambling Autobots. He turned around.

He appeared to be in someone's quarters. A recharge berth inhabited one corner, beneath a wall-mounted weapons display, and on the stand beside the berth was a small Scraplet in a tank, gnawing on some unidentifiable piece of metal. A small refectory area was visible in another corner, and in the center of the room was a sofa. A door off the east wall clearly led to a shower rack, and a more ornate set of doors lay nestled between two shelves of datapads and holobooks against the back wall.

He looked around, then approached the back doors. He slipped through them, and looked around as the dim red lights automatically came up at the detection of his presence. He looked around the large room, and nearly purged his tanks at what he saw.

Heads.

Severed heads. Dozens of them, perhaps even hundreds. Great Primus, there could've even been a thousand. They were everywhere, impaled on spikes that poked upward from brackets on the walls, or from the levels of tiered display units on the floor. Their lifeless faceplates were twisted in horrified and agonized expressions, yet their paint was bright, not a single scratch or dent in the plating. Even their optics were intact, the colors as bright as the paint. Those who'd had the solid covering over the optic itself still had it.

The Eradicon forced the stream of potential purge back down, and turned to flee, only to find himself face-to-face with an Autobot.

Her scarlet optics burned into his glaucous ones, and he tried to skitter backward. "Uh... hi there?" he greeted.

"You know, I thought Decepticons had a little more respect than this for others' spaces," she hissed dangerously, examining her claws, the ends of which were bladed and appeared to be purple. "I must admit, it was quite a shock to find that one was in my quarters, and you can imagine how startled I am to discover one in my gallery." Her lip components parted, and she ran her forked glossa across her dental plates, highlighting two pointed, amethyst fangs.

"Please... just let me go... I won't tell anyone about this-"

"My collection is common knowledge," she said airly. "In fact, I think that you will find a familiar faceplate or two here... ah, yes, I believe you would know the Combaticons? I only have two of them, but I look forward to obtaining the others. Yes, Onslaught and Vortex are quite the additions, but two of five is not the entire set, is it? Of course, Drag Strip and Wildrider keep them company quite nicely. As does that Eradicon there. Are all of you identical?"

The Eradicon looked away from her for a split second, and found himself faceplate-to-faceplate with one of his own fallen brothers. He let out a yell, and turned to run, only to find himself speared on five bladed claws. The female Autobot smiled gruesomely, and the last image that graced the poor spark's visual field was the faces of her previous victims reflecting back at him in her scarlet body-mounted blades.

***  
Optimus strode into her gallery some time later, folding his arms. "Ember, I've been trying to hail you for over a megacycle."

"I have been preoccupied," the female said coldly, holding up the latest addition to her collection and turning it to inspect it once before she continued polishing. "You cannot rush perfection, you know."

"... is that the Decepticon intruder?"

"Yes."

"... never mind then."

"I am glad we had this talk," she said sarcastically, rubbing at a spot on the side of the head with her cleaning rag.

Optimus peered around his assassin and his in-temp rose. "... do you always let that thing out of its cage to get rid of bodies?"

"Hm? Oh, hush, you know scraplets only consume dead metal. Most of her teeth are gone anyway, it takes her a long while to finish off a corpse. I cannot believe anyone is afraid of a creature the size of their optic."

"Shut up," Optimus growled, turning to leave. "Prowl wanted to see you. Don't ask why, he didn't say."

"I can guess what he wants. He is not a difficult creature to predict." She stood, placing the head on a shelf, and picking up a half-completed spike to finish carving it. "Is there anything else? I have arranging to do."

"No, nothing else." He turned and walked out. Ember smirked, finishing the spike and attaching it to the shelf before tenderly impaling the head on it. She giggled contentedly, rubbing at a non-existant speck beside the optic with her polishing rag.


End file.
